Alexander Owetschkin: A Torrecord for Eternity – or not?

It is this one moment when the last ice hockey fan also realizes that a talent of the century is on the ice. It is January 15, 2006, the Washington Capitals play with the Arizona Coyotes. A game of two beaten teams in the National Hockey League, for short NHL, the best ice hockey league in the world. The Capitals lead 5: 1 in the last third, when Alexander Owetschkin sets a solo, curve his opponent of the Coyotes and fell. Lying on his back, the 20-year-old somehow manages to accommodate the disc with a pirouette in the goal of Arizona.

For Owetschkin it is the first season in the NHL that he conquered in the storm. He has already scored 31 goals for this – in just 43 games. For a long time it was unclear whether he would go on the ice in North America at all, and his parents wanted him to stay in Moscow. On this evening in January 2006, Owetschkin became a young legend-the goal, in the USA with the nickname “The Goal”, is still considered the greatest goal of 107-year NHL history. A gate so incomprehensible that even the TV commentator “you want to fool me” slips out.

After the goal there is astonishment: with the capital, among the spectators, the coyotes and Arizona’s coach Wayne Gretzky. Gretzky stands on the gang with an open mouth, a view of the repetitions on the video bubble. Gretzky saw a lot in his career. The 64-year-old is probably the best player who ever existed in ice hockey. The Canadian keeps numerous records – but he has been rid of you since Sunday evening. Most goals in the career in the regular season. The new record holder? Alexander Owetschkin, who scored his 895th goal on Sunday evening at the Capitals guest game. In the audience: Wayne Gretzky – but more on that later.

At the beginning of his career, Owetschkin is considered a new promise to ice hockey alongside Pittsburgh’s Sydney Crosby – and the great hope of the NHL. When both entered the ice rink for the first time in October 2005, the league is in the greatest crisis in its history. There is a lack of a figurehead like Gretzky, who ended his career in 1999 and has held the Torrecord since March 1994. In addition, the season had failed: the players had gone on strike because the league wanted to introduce a salary limit-as they exist in other US sports. The two sides were so far apart that a complete season was canceled for the first time in the history of US sports.

But Owetschkin (and also Crosby) meet expectations. Arrived in the late autumn of their careers, both are now considered the best players in their generation. The NHL had been preparing for months that Owetschkin would set a new record. On the start page of the league, a banner counted down the number of gates that the Russian had to achieve for the new record. With “The Gr8 Chase” (the big hunting), with the 8 as a word game based on the shirt number of the superstar, the league praised the perhaps the best scorer of all time.

Owetschkin combines on the ice, which only a few players have: an inimitable goal instinct, paired with speed, physique and leadership qualities. Away from the ice, the 39-year-old, like many superstars in the United States, is involved in social events, donates tickets to needy families and money to charity organizations. The fact that the two -time family man Owetschkin never distances himself from Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and never condemned the war of aggression on Ukraine is usually the only criticism of Owetschkin. “Ovi” called on the end of the conflict, but he never gave way to Putin.

Owetschkin, who is one of the greatest sports star in his home country, is friends with the Russian president. Putin presented Owetschkin for his wedding 2016 with a tea service. In return, the sports star founded the “Team Putin” in 2017, which called for the president’s re -election in the following year. However, fans and those responsible in the USA are very little interested in Owetschkin’s political interests. The show has to go on, and where Owetschkin is, the big show is usually not far away.

Before the season, there had been doubts whether the now 39-year-old could break the record this season. He had only scored 31 goals in the past season, so few – the except for the 2020 season shortened by Corona – as in eight years. Especially since the Capitals no longer ran round. Since the 2018 championship, the capital team has always been saying goodbye in the first round of the playoffs, the team’s shape curve pointed down.

With the new season, however, the Capitals led by Owetschkin. The wing striker scored 15 goals in the first 18 games before one and a half months and a half put him out of action. Owetschkin put on ice – this rarely seemed in the striker’s career. When he got a puck in the middle of the NHL at the beginning of his time, “Ovi” simply continued. When asked about the scene, Owetschkin explained at the press conference in a brittle English: “Russian Machine Never Breaks”. The Russian machine did not break even after the injury in November and continued to deliver goals. For the 14th time in his career, he scored more than 40 goals in one season – and expanded his own record with it.

The fact that anyone would even make it to beat Wayne Gretzky were long considered to be excluded. Even a few years ago, Owetschkin excluded that he could score more than 894 goals. Ice hockey has changed too much in the past decades. The game is more tactical, the equipment of the goalkeepers better, the number of goals less. The Edmonton Oilers, with whom Gretzky shaped an era, are still the only team that scored more than 400 goals – and that in five consecutive seasons, in which Gretzky has always become top scorer. While Owetschkin’s career, which he spent completely at the Capitals, the capital city club only managed to score more than 300 goals in a season.

Conductor Owetschkin two things: Gretzky was never the personified goal scorer, in addition to his 894 goals, “The Great One” delivered templates in 1963. To date, Gretzky has given more templates in his career than any other player in history and combined. And the game of the Capitals is geared towards “Ovi” and its relentless goal instinct. In the left Bullykreis, the striker found his “home” in his career, scored numerous of his goals from this area. He also scored the record goal on Sunday, at the same time its 325th goal – also a top value.

It is no coincidence that Gretzky was in the 895th goal in the audience. The two have been in contact for years, Owetschkin reported that Gretzky was one of his greatest supporters. “If such a person keeps my fingers crossed for me, that’s pretty cool,” said the Russian. “Even if I have a doldrum, he sometimes writes me an SMS and says: ‘Don’t worry. That is still coming.’ He’s on my side. “

Gretzky had already announced months ago to be the record in the hall and to be the first to congratulate Owetschkin. The fact that it happened then also has to do with the event of sport in North America. Because after the record goal in the second third, things didn’t just go on. The NHL interrupted the game for 20 minutes to honor Owetschkin directly on the ice – with Gretzky as the first congratulator and the new record goal scorer surrounded by his wife, the two children and his mother. The fact that the capital was lost 1: 4 afterwards was only the marginal note.

“There are records for this to be broken. But I don’t know who should break this record,” said Gretzky on the ice on Sunday evening. But that was also said when Gretzky set up his Torrecord intended for eternity.